this morning my question -- did you know that mississippi schools are resegregated? plus, it is hashtag fbj time. my governor is working my last nerve, and why a coat of pink paint is the ultimate sign of defiance, but first, this is the moment when the big change is possible. good morning, i'm melissa harris-perry. did everyone get the memo? check the inbox. it was from the hispanic leadership network and the subject line was "suggested dos and don'ts of immigration reform." you know this one that the hln sent to the gop to give them a little bit of help when talking

about immigrants. as they say to provide tonally sensitive messaging points to those members of the grand old party who just haven't evolved disgurively on immigration. some of the dos and don'ts are don't use phrases like illegals or aliens and never say anchor-baby. instead, why not use undocumented immigrant when referring to those who are here without, well, documentation. and when addressing border security, don't ever say "send them all back" or "electric fence." how about the enforcement of our borders. the hln is a group devoted the bringing more voters into the gop, is highlighting that the president broke his promise on the immigration reform in the first term, but they caution not to focus on amnesty, and to avoid at all costs president reagan's immigration reform as an example that applies today,

so it got me wondering when i heard senator john mccain getting straight to the point this week. >> how do you convince the republicans about the path to citizenship? >> well, look, i will give you a little straight talk. look at the last election. look at the last election. we are losing dramatically the hispanic vote. >> so did senator mccain get the same memo? maybe he got the other memo, the one that sold all of the congressional memos to get with comprehensive immigration program. because language does matter and shift in immigration debate is one that we have all been long calling for and one that channels the speech for the real people about whom this political debate is about. seems that the republicans got one more memo since the 2012 election.

there has not been just a change in speech happening. remember when was this acceptable speech coming from the senators two years ago? >> one of the issues that is often talked about, but never seriously discussed is the practice of allowing people to come here illegally and having a child and the child automatically given american citizenship. we need to look at that in the future as to whether or not we want to change that, because i believe it is a incentive to change the wave of the future and i don't want the third wave of illegal immigrants coming here. >> and from the illegals and the anchor babies, and senator graham coming in the gang of eight, and graham says, this is time to get it done. a press release this week quotes him enthusiastically saying that i do believe that 2013 presents the best chance to pass immigration reform. these days, everybody has a come p prehennive proposal to offer. i wonder if the bipartisan folks

in the house and the senate got the memo, the one with these numbers, 27 and 2. a policy wonk reminds us, 27% is the share the democrats picked up, and 2 is the electorate projected to vote for the republicans. if you see it as an electorate as a voting bloc, and you want to take back the white house, the fight is now. and no fight preceded in the years starting with victory. the civil rights struggle did not start in the 1950s, because the african-americans had been demanding representation in the 1580s. and women did not just decide to fight for voting rights. the leaps in the country have been made since the founding of fighting for the safe and the legal status, and the frpressur

from the dreamers and others have trodden the political landscape this time. as the president said in nevada tuesday when unveiling the immigration reform proposal, the time has come. with me is aisha moody hills from american progress, and immigration attorney and former federal prosecutor michael wilds, and christina jimenez, managing director of the united we dream network and media consultant john riley, a democratic strategist, and in tucson, arizona, democratic congressman raoul jimenez. >> thank you. >> i would like to start with why are we coming to a consensus, when we have seen a wedge? >> i believe that the opportunity to do immigration reform at a level that is

lasting and good for the nation has taken that momentum building in communities and churches and i think that the dreamers crystallized that for all of the nation politically and much credit to this dialogue we are having right now goes to the students and the young people. and the election and the beating of the republicans in the last election in the latino and the asian community as well is the barometer of the future. they know it. so whether it is by heart felt instinct that my republican colleagues are coming to the issue of comprehensive immigration reform or expediency, and political expediency, i don't really care. this is a chance to do something that is right. it is a long time coming and much sacrifice and frustration and heartache in the communities and immigration is not the only issue for latinos, but it became the moral compass in this last

election. >> and congressman, you make such a good point that i want to turn to you, michael, on, and it is a point that the president has said not to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good and perfect motivations may not matter, and yet, i worry, michael, as a immigration lawyer and second-generation one in fact, you know what this looks like in the nuts and the bolts of people's lives and when you look at the policy proposals, what do you think that the president is proposing and for example marco rubio is presenting? >> well, thank you so much for having me and you spoke to eloquently. with 270 immigration judges, and there are not enough handcuffs and beds and prisons to detain 11 million people. we cannot afford do it, and maybe political expediency to bring us to the table right now, and the republicans can try to take credit and the democrats can say it is in our dna, but

the bottom line is that the lady of liberty has seen justice for blacks and gays and so many others. and they have to say border patrol first and then deal with the 11 million second, no, we can't do that. we have more drones and fences and news flash, who is going to actually build that fence if it is not going to be in the republicans may not want to -- >> the undocumented immigrants. >> and may not want to call them aliens or undocumented, but they are workers. so to the suburban hands in the nation, we need help, and the greatest entrepreneurs of the nation's history have always been immigrants. >> yes, it is interesting bark was you have two ways to hear the frame. on the one hand the congressman was saying thank you to the dreerms and the young people who managed to shift the discourse in dialogue, and what happens when the dreamers become the

face of immigration reform is that it no longer feels like the face of immigration is the low-wage worker and those are in fact the most vulnerable people, and how do we keep immigration in the forefront as we talk about these policies? >> thank you for having me on the show. this is not only about the dreamers, and it is helpful to keep in mind that what the dreamers did successfully by coming out and sharing the stories and saying that we are undocumented an unafraid, because this is what we learned in school. that is what we learned about the values of america, freedom of speech, and freedom of dreams, and dreamers are parts of family, and they were brave enough to seek a better life come t coming to the country, and that is what it comes to that we are fighting for. when it comes the sharing the stories, part of the work as the organizers and the foot soldiers as you refer to the organizers

is sharing the stories of the families and our parents, because it is those stories that need to be reflective of the policy debate that we are having about immigration reform, and it is not only about the students. it is about families, and it is about people. >> and it is interestingly not about republicans. gentlemen, i want you to listen to this as a piece from rush limbaugh and marco rubio and the fact that they are on together is fascinating. >> what you are doing is noteworthy and fascinating that you are trumpeting reality and shout i shouting i. >> is that guy good or what, folks? marco rubio. >> and so congressman, you know, here we have limbaugh who is cheering on marco rubio for immigration reform. am i in the "twilight zone?" >> no, but you have seen the raw and the most offensive form of

expediency that you will see for a long time. but i believe that the key to that and in mr. rubio's proposals and the senators came up with the skeleton and the flesh needs to be put together, and the family uniication has to be central to this. the issue of the road map for citizenship, and what does it look like, because the proposal is to create a road map and limit the number of resources to unify families, it is a self-defeating proposition. you know, the issue of security, and the president was right, those cannot be tethered together. they have to be separate. before we talk about layering more money, and more detentions, and more and more, let's look at the efficiency and the use of the $18 billion a year enforcement in the southern bord border, and let's look at that before there's a knee-jeshgs

reaction to say, put security front and center again, and that is all we have had for the last ten years, and not do the human humane side of the equation. >> john, i want to bring you in on this side, because it feels like two discourse, and on one hand, you have hln saying don't use language like anchor babies and illegal, and yet the president is saying it is a fundamental part of the discour discourse. >> well, we should not have exuberance on this issue, because when the debate came in the republicans were saying unifying things, and this is going to be a tough battle. when you think of what is happening in america whether it is at the state level or the federal level and when it comes to whether the republicans will work with anybody, look at what the tea party value, and that is what we will have and think of the angriest and the whitest and the oldest men in america, and where they are, and they are not good on immigration. i have done some, and been in on some research recently, where we were talking about the medicaid

and the government programs and when you talk about how people view these things, a lot of what was coming out was especially from white voters and men is that they are defining immigrants as part of the problem. i love the talk right now, and we will have serious cross fire when we get into the details. >> take wit a grain of suspic n suspicion. thank you to congressman grijalva from arizona, and thank you for weighing n. when we come back, i want to talk about the defl in the details, and aisha, i want to come to you, and also, we have the conservative viewpoint of reform coming up. i have low testosterone. there, i said it. how did i know? well, i didn't really. see, i figured low testosterone would decrease my sex drive... but when i started losing energy and became moody... that's when i had an honest conversation with my doctor. we discussed all the symptoms... then he gave me some blood tests.

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even as it seems that many republican politicians are johnny come latelies to the issue of immigration reform, there are conservative advocates on this issue for some time and most notably former governor of florida jeb bush has been pushing the party to more warmly embrace the latino electorate. next month, former governor bush and his partner at the goldwater institute will release their book "immigration wars, forging an american solution" and last week they penned an op-ed in the "wall street journal," that in some conservative circles the word comprehensive immigration reform is an epithet-a code word for amnesty. people who have such declaration s when associated with the

border states are moving toward something more. go and now the author is joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> you have said that the legislation act since 1952 has not held up well and in short, we need to start from scratch. so how realistic to make policy from the ground-up? >> well, it is super important the do that, because america's realities in the 2013 are so different than when the law was passed 60 years ago. first of all, we need immigrants more than ever, but we have a system that does, that has extensive family preferences that include parents and siblings that crowd out work-based immigrants both on the high skill side and on the lower skill side. that is the sort of thing that

we need to grapple with as we move forward, but we do think that the best way of preventing illegal immigration is to have a workable legal immigration system, and we haven't had that for a very long time. >> all right. part of it is about raising the caps and those other sorts of things, and aisha, it feels like the devil is in the details here, and we have been hearing comprehensive immigration reform and seeing the bipartisanship, and still we have a premium on border security, and on both sides, and we have the fact that the path to citizenship is contingent on fines, and english languages and classes and getting to the back of the line and still feels like to me there is a preference for a certain kind of immigration here. >> and yes, it brings up class issue, and first of all, anybody who would suggest that we are not enforcing the border is woefully ignorant. 85% of the border is secure, and

the parts that are not are inhabitable and it would be so much to maintain that portion would be economically nonviable. anybody who sayings we have anything else is kicking the ball on the court. and if you say, that you can be on the path of citizenship if you pay all of the back taxes that you have and pay a fine and we are talking about folks who are coming here and making the meager earnings, and how long does it take them to pay it all back before they can become citizens. >> michael, you made an economic argument about the cost of detaining and the cost of deporting and the cost of all of this, but i keep thinking about the cost of getting on that path to citizenship for ordinary immigrants here. >> all year long, we have the

stories of the people coming into the offices. the filing fees are prohibitive to everybody introduced to the new gift. these people are putting food on the table, and they have the same challenges. president reagan in the 1980s changed the immigration law when he gave the nasty word amnesty out, and then he shifted the responsibility of policing immigration from government to employers, and the employers in a hard economy and generation now are being punished by the obama administration and the justice department and homeland security by not doing i-9s and policing the immigration of their staff. the economics here are very harsh. what we should be doing is to remove the biblical straw and giving employers the staff and the resources that they need. giving people a path legally in a earned legal since and financial fee they can afford, and yes paying taxes and ferr ferreting out all of the criminals. i'm a former federal pros

prosecutors, we do not want to create a place for people to boot strap themselves in on criminal grounds, but again, this will prevent deporting people to areas that should not be, and we cannot detain people here who are scholars, because the detention facilities are abominab abominable. >> clint, i heard you say a couple of things that are surprising, well, a lot of things that are surprising, and the number one thing is that we need more workers, and we are hearing of a xhiblg crisis and surplus of workers and that is part of the reason why immigration is down overall, but secondly, as i talk to michael about the resources that we will need to make any of the ground-up policies work, that sounds to me potentially like big government. can we get the republicans on board give ten two realities?

>> well, first of all we theneeo look at the bipartisan plan is not just for the labor unions, because on the left they are sounding the alarm that we are going to be allowing too many immigrants in, so this is an issue with many dimensions to it, but right now, we are not producing through births enough new americans to keep our population as it is right now, and we are about to have a massive number of people beginning to retiring, and we need productive workers to fill those spots and to sustain our economy and social welfare system. this is something that is missing from the debate, because with we need productive workers and the only place to get them right now is through immigration. so, i think that republicans will understand that. beyond that, really, we are not calling for a bigger government

solution at all, and quite the contrary. we think that market forces ought to dictate immigration, and right now for both farm worker jobs, tourism jobs as well as high-tech jobs, there are not enough americans filling the jobs. we saw what happened when alabama sent a bunch of illegal immigrants back, the crops died on the vines, and otherwise, high-tech jobs are exported to foreign country, because we don't have enough high skilled workers to fill those jobs, and we have to fix those issues and do it now. >> clint, thank you. we have to take a break now, but when we come back, we want to talk more about the issues, because that particular perspective is fascinating one in that this is the solution of the problem of the social safety net and everything else is to get workers here. i want to think about the human side in addition to the labor side. thank you, clint, for being part

of the conversation. i want to talk about the issue of humanity when we come back.

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the most common side effects are mild to moderate nausea and vomiting. the flu comes on fast, so ask your doctor about tamiflu. prescription for flu. when we talk about that in the abstract, it is easy sometimes for the discussion to take on a feeling of us versus them. and when that happens, a lot of folk folks forget that most of us used to be them. >> on tuesday president obama reminded us that all immigration is about all of us. so when we say comprehensive immigration reform, we can't just not break up familyies and assume that we know what a family is, because the immigration reform is to be truly comprehensive, it must include all families including the lgbtq families, and so i want to bring up the broader issue of family, but first, i want to talk about a little bit about what we heard in terms of

thinking about immigration fundamentally as an economic and sort of a policy around the social safety net, and it is both great and horrible, and makes me feel icky when we take the human part out of it. >> well, let's be real, immigration is about the economy and the values of the country and the integration and education and the labor force, but it is about families. we are talking about real families here coming from across the globe seeking the american dream. and we are talking a about enforcement, and somehow the president, and the republicans and the democrats are talk about the false narratives that the bo borders are not safe enough or secure enough, and the immigration policy institute came up with a report looking at the enforcement we have in place, and we are talking about the immigration enforcement is the program that receives the most funding if you compare it to the rest of the programs of our federal enforcement, and

they have since 1986 received over $180 billion. with that money, what we are doing is detaining families. just recently our organization united we dream, and the dreamers have been working to expo exposing the pain that our families are experiencing due to tens forment, and working on the cases every week in arizona and texas and california where the parents and the moms are being raided in their homes and being put into the detention facilities. >> and that will get a bipartisan coalition together, but family is a broad definition. we had senator mccain this week in responding to the angst of many of us concerned with the lgbtq families saying it is a red herring, and it is just a red herring scoffed mccain, and add that, and you may as well add taxpayer-funded abortion. so he is saying, what is more important, and i will tell you what my priorities are, and it

is like, puff-puff, and these are real families and issues that impact folks. >> and yes, tearing apart folks. if you have biracial couples and my wife was from brazil and we were legally married in the state of new york, i would not be able to bring her in with a path to citizenship to the united states, because our marriage is not recognized by the federal government, and that is the under core of this is that the marriage act prevents our marriage to be recognized equal to everyone else's, and that is why in the immigration debate, the instincts that want to throw the lgbt folks under the bus, because there is a feeling that we don't care about you anyway, and so that is to me getting to the humanity problem. this should be about dignity and respect about treating all people equal ly in america and bringing people into the soechlt and when you say, you people over here don't matter and you are gay, you don't matter and that is to the point that at the end of the day, it should be

about families and reuniting them and making sure they stay together. >> absolutely. the senator himself became a political chameleon in the last generation with the late senator kennedy for immigration reform, and then when he was running for president, himself, what immigration reform? and now we are going to discount one part of the family? the humanity of the issue is extraordinary. as a lawyer, we sit with people trying to come to the shores and f families torn asunder and people who have not built businesses on your soil, because of the disrespect that a same-sex partner receives and they cannot adjust their status if they come here, and the government recognizes the military in same-sex partnerships, and thatly give them a j-1 status or a person to have a long-term visa for life and then the partner is not permanent, and they cannot work. we are shooting ourselves in the foot. the humanity of this thing is so

heart felt when you see the families and the dafc that came out, deferred action for children, and it came out from my father when the nixon administration was trying to use lennon as a wedge against the vietnam era. everybody had children and nobody would be affected by this and nobody would be affected by the unification policy. and ultimately if we take the concern for the homeland which is important and realize that there are more overstays of vees is as than people trespassing on the borders and deal with the humanity of this thing, there is not anybody unless they are native americans who doesn't hail from an immigrant and does not appreciate the humanity up front. >> well, some of us did not immigrate, but we did get here. >> one thank is lost in the immigration debate is that when

you talk to the employers out there, and maybe even sometimes get a few drinks in them, they will talk to you not about wanting immigrants and wanting a lot of the workers from a low-wage standpoint, but they want the immigrant work ethic. the reason that immigrants built so much of the country is that aspiring american dream-oriented work ethic, and they can't find that from other people in our economy, and so i think that from the message standpoint, and also from the, if immigration is not part of your life wherever you are in america, you have to understand that. >> i also love john ryan, that you are a southern strategist, because the strategy begins with having a few drinks. after the break, scouts honor. are the boy scouts ready to live up to the creed? my letter is next. ♪ [ woman ] too weak. wears off. been there. tried that.

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being married to an eagle scout is a wonderful thing. my husband can make fire in minutes and build a shelter for two with a rock and dried leaves and an armful of sticks and he will recite the boy scout oath for people without being prompted. >> on my honor, i will do my best -- >> i on my honor i will do my best -- >> -- to do my duty to god and my country -- >> to do my duty to god and the my country -- >> and to obey the scout law. >> and to obey people at all times. >> to keep myself physically strong. >> and morally straight. >> yes. >> it grooms young men to be leaders, and you can imagine my excitement this monday when the boy scouts announced that they may do away with the sexual

orientation, sort of. h that is why my letter this week is to boy scout executive wayne brock. dear wayne, it is me, melissa. when i read the first part of the memo saying that you were going to remove the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation. and i was like, yes, getting rid of the discriminatory barrier to allow those who love the boy sk scouts to support the work, and ensure quality of leadership that the great things that the boy scouts have to offer. then i read on. the policy change under discussion would allow the religious, civic or educational organizations that oversee and deliver scouting to determine how to address this issue. the boy scouts would not under any circumstances dictate a position to units, members or parents. under this proposed policy, the bsa would not require any chartered organization to act in ways that are inconsistent with

that organization's missions, principles or religious beliefs. come on, wayne. that is one weaken dorsme mendor policy change. instead of making a umbrella policy change, you leave the discretion to the 290 local governing councils and the 260,000 religious groups that sponsor scouting? cle clearly the policy that garnered 1.2 million online signatures was enough to make you say that you might do something, but not fully commit to it. wayne, the boy scouts of america website affirms this, scouting is truly a melting pot. scouts come from all walks of life and all types of family units, and faiths and ethnic groups, and they respect values of groups who encompass the scout laws and enables youth to

live and learn as children and enjoy scouting without immersing them in the politics of the day. that is right, wayne. all boys can be helpful, and friendly and courteous and kind and thrifty and irreverent and for that, the boy scouts must welcome gay men and boys. time for you to follow the example of pioneers like dr. michael kahn who in 1991 led the first troop to openly resist your anti-gay policies or maybe follow the lead of other scouts, the girl scouts who have always been all inclusive and leaving the issue of sexual orientation to the girls and their families. that, wayne, is leadership. so instead of punting the ball at next week's meeting when the final policy may be made, you need to make a firmer stance and live up to your oath, because the boys and the future partners in life are counting on you.

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it's amazing what soup can do. in talking about comprehensive immigration reform policy, we cannot forget the most important part, the people. there are an estimated 11 million undocumented workers in the u.s. 58% are from mexico and 23% from various other parts of latin america, and 11% are from asia, and 4% from europe and canada. the obama administration's deferred action for childhood arrivals initiative would help the youngest of the 11 million achieve status, and 936,930 immigrants or 426,300 meet the requirement for deferred action, and 31% of those between ages 5-14 will be eligible in the future.

we are and have always been an immigrant society whether fleeing persecution or looking for a better way of life, the u.s. has always had an abundant promise for the immigrant, but it is the promise that the dreamers are now demanding be made real in this moment. back at the table, aisha moo moodie-mills, and immigration attorney michael wilds, and christina jimenez, executive director of united we dream network, and joining us is the chair of the dream network, and you are undocumented and working through the system, and can you talk to me about that? >> i have recently applied for the deferred action and waiting, and i'm still undocumented, but waiting. in so many aspects. i graduated law school and passed one of the most tormenting and difficult law

exams, but i hope to be a licensed lawyer pending the outcome, and represent my community, but because of the status, new york does not know how to deal with the issue. >> and this is important, because we heard from the early blocs of the idea of immigrant labor talking about low wage labor, and construction and fast food, but a lot of that is not because necessarily where people would end up, but because the undocumented status, itself, means when you have for example finished law school and passed the bar exam that you can't be admitted to certain aspects of the professional and the white co collar world, because undocumented status makes it tough to be there. >> exactly. that is what when i was going to college, i paid for my tuition by selling avon products and working -- >> a shout out for avon. >> avon paid for my college. and having no papers is

marginalizing, and i worked with young people all across the country, and when you are undocumented and you are going to high school and you the teachers telling you the work hard and you will ak kccomplish your dreams and going into college, you realize you run document and you cannot go, and you work so hard and that is what happened i was in the top ten of the class and i wanted to go to college and become the first person in my family to get a higher education, and my college adviser said to me, if you don't have a social security number, you can't go. that was the driving force behind me saying, this is not right. this not reflective of the values that we believe in, in this nation. if you don't have papers, you can't have access to scholarships and to my experience, access to fellowships and you can't work, and we have a lawyer here and nurses who cannot practice their professions. >> and the thesis, if i may is to encourage people into the professions, to have them participate and help us in our military, and our first doca

case wiis a young lady in harva law school, and the pride and joy of the family, and can you imagine going to harvard law school, and being -- other than the one we at the end, and i teach at the cardoza law school business and immigration administration. there are people seeking a career in immigration law, and there are children who are smarter, stronger, and better than others, and we want to get them here. we want science and technology and engineering students here. >> and part of it is that we talked about the immigrant work ethic, but part of it is the immigration work ethic, and to the extent that you want your kids to come for the better life and the educational opportunity. so we will take a quick break and i want to come back to talk about the dreerms and how you are shifting the entire discourse of what immigration is in this country.

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i wish you could have been here on the break, because there was a whole like organizing and asking for the resumes and deciding and quite lovely, but in part, because you guys are all sort of as my father would say in the struggle still, and both of you are in d.c. all of the time, and what is environment that we are looking at right now for the dreamers? >> well, in d.c. what we are seeing is that first of all we are encouraged by the interest of both parties. we are not naive, because it is a political calculus for both parties and the president, and what we are very discouraged about is this false narrative that borders are not secure, and the families tend to be deported, but for the dreamers, this is a critical point to continue to lead in the fight. we did not get here, because president obama has a good heart, and democrats and republicans have a good heart.

this is over a decade of organizing, mobilizing and registering a massive number of latino voters who came out to the polls. that is what got us here, and we know that if we want a bill that is good for our community, we have to keep fighting and organizi organizing, and for the dreamers, we want a real and direct path for citizenship and not just for the dreamers, but the families. >> and there is a strategy, because we will talk about rosa parks later in the show, and parks was a respectable citizen and you used her as a wedge to blow open some of the civil rights organizing questions burk when we focus exclusively on the s.t.e.m., science, technology, engineering and math, and not law degredegrees, but looking a status of the families, and what does that mean for us? >> what christina has mentioned a few times before, the dreamers are not about the dreamers that come here by themselves, because they are part of families, and

we are delivering that message to congress and especially to the president. the president in the second term, his concern is about legacy, and what legacy is he leaving? a legacy of broken families or a legacy of real reform? that something that we are demanding to bring something, because this country is not about one people, but about a community, and that is something that we want to demonstrate to the president and the republicans. >> that is exactly what the dreamers represent, and we talk about the big blue tent in the coalition, and who makes it up in a partisan way, but if you look at the dreamers, and the way it is working, there is a diverse group, because there are 1 100,000 lgbt people who are in this work, and also some latino lgbt people who are inspired by this and the dreamers, and the young coalition of young people.

>> and this is strategic and how we change the narrative of immigration, and this is when it became a human issue. >> and you have given the president who has extraordinary street credentials who was elected, and he has deported more people in his presidency than any president beforehand and with a community, and with a community like yours and with the pulling the lenses back on the entire landscape and understanding of course, that this is not just the latino vote, but it is an issue for everybody. there are students coming from the culinary schools and going into the fashion schools and the hospitality corridors and the people in agricultural issues picking blueberries and affecting meals on the table, and if we can get this right and congress not involved in the deafening silence and do something, wow. >> i love this idea that it is a broad coalition. thank you to all of you.

coming up next, why school segregation is making a comeback. i can't believe that is the story, but it is. and the rosa parks that you don't know. her extraordinary life is revealed. there is more nerdland at the top of the hour. ♪ if it wasn't for you ♪ don't know what i'd do ♪ i'd have nothing to prove [ male announcer ] introducing the celebration diamond collection. zales is the diamond store. let love shine. five days later, i had a massive heart attack. bayer aspirin was the first thing the emts gave me. now, i'm on a bayer aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. [ woman ] learn from my story.

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♪ sexy lady ♪ who's that lady? [ female announcer ] used mops can grow bacteria. swiffer wetjet starts with a clean pad every time, and its antibacterial cleaner kills bacteria mops can spread around. swiffer gives cleaning a whole new meaning. ♪ lovely lady welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry. it has been more than half a century since the supreme court decided the "brown v. board of education" decision that separate is inherently illegal and ended the public school segregation in the country. part of the decision explained, quote, that separating black children from others solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way that is unlikely ever to be undone, and the impact of segregation is greater when it has the sanction of law and a since of inferiority and

affects the motivation of a child to learn. 50 years after the court recognized the negative effects of segregation, american kids are still suffer iing. a recent stanford university study shows that schools released from the court ordered desegregation plans have returned to areas of racial isolation. in the south, we are experiencing an era of resegregation, and one reason is that many schools were never truly integrated. when the public schools were ordered to integrate, many schools developed academies to supply. in mississippi, arkansas, alabama and virginia -- the online independent news site heckinger said that more than 35 academies survive in mississippi alone n. a state where 37% of the population is african-american, each of the academies have a student body where african-americans are fewer than 2% of the students.

it is a reminder that school choice was initially an engine of racial segregation as the white families were willing to pay extra to keep their kids separate, and the investment in public school would dwindle as the region's black children was left behind. one of my next guests is working to address the needs of the children in the deep south. the freedom project takes its name from the freedom schools in the 1964 voter registration campaign. it is a project devoted to aftercool programs for academic enrichment for the stints of the mississippi delta. chris ashe joins me, and at the table is jalani cobb, and one of the top political strategists, john riley, and jackie mater as well. i want to start with you on the

question of what sun flower is, and what it does and how it is responding to the problems of a continued segregation, and resegregation of students in the south. >> sure. well, we started the sun flower freedom county project more than a decade ago to address the educational inequalities in the public school system, and basically we used the history of the 1960s freedom struggle to inspire young people to excel academically and become leaders in their communities today. as you suggested, there are many school districts across the south that were never really integrated and sun flower county is one of them, and as the viewers saw the academies located in sun flower academy they popped up after the 1960s and many people believe that "brown" started the desegregation of the schools, but in the rural community that is not true, because before the civil rights act, there were virtually no black children going to the schools, and then

after the act, you had the force of integration, that is when you saw the academies pop up in sunflower and across the south, and then when the supreme court weighed in and saying in 1969 that you have to integrate now, the academies blossomed. so almost overnight in sun flower school system the schools went from black to white, and the white students left. what happened is that the schools started out in ramshackled church basements, but then they have built buildings and expanded and now community institutions being around 30 or 40 years, and so you have multiple generations going, and this is where my parents went and this is where i'm going go, and so they are deeply rooted in the community so that new white families who might come n they might not know the racist past of the institutions, and think think, well, that is where i have to

send my kids. >> yes, that is how it works. martha, there is a central justice question, because on the one hand families are paying a private school tuition and opting out, but it creates a deep injustice in the public system. >> there is really today sort of two mississippis on this question, and one is the counties and the school districts that chris just described where white flight from district happened where there were substantial percentages of african-american populations. in districts and counties in mississippi with lower populations, there is a tipping point. so in those districts, we do see desegregation happening and happening, and those districts are educating virtually all of the children in those areas. so we have in mississippi today about 10% of children overall go outside the public system, so the public school system is the

vehicle to bridge the education gap and touch all of those other terrible indicators that leave mississippi at the bottom. >> part of it is that mississippi is a poor state. >> absolutely. >> and the people are willing to pay a premium to segregate, and the capacity to pay that premium is limited, but john, it is still -- i'm always want to be careful when we talk about the school sge graduatiointegration know that african-american communities have been of multiple minds of this question, because when segregation happened, it happened on the backs of the community schools that were closed on the backend of so-called integrating. >> yes. >> and the thing that we have to bear in mind here is a move and counter move history that goes way before "brown versus board of education." the best person on this is derrick bell, the legal scholar and activist, and with the legal defense fund, derrick bell was

handling the cases that ended up segregating schools in mississippi, and when i interviewed him late in his life, he said that as a young person, he was shocked to find that the community schools in mist masissippi did not want to segregate, but they wanted equalization, and resources. when they sthad that we cannot fight a equalization case, the naacp, and so then they went back to the governor and said, unless you equalize the schools, we will segregate, but segregating is the last option. people wanted to have actual resourced functioning schools in their own community even if the schools were entirely black. >> and it is interesting, jackie, because i started this by talking about the "brown" case, and particularly the part that was the kenneth clark dahl studies and the supreme court saying we have to integrate, and if we don't, we will end up with african-american children having a negative sense of themselves and black children picking white dolls, and we saw these studies

replicated in a little film of " "girls like me" and we saw a replication of that. i want to look at that for a moment, and then come back. >> dr. kenneth clark conducted a doll test with black children. he asked them to choose between the black doll and the white doll, and in the majority of the instances the children preferred the white doll. i decided to reconduct the test as dr. clark did and find out how we have progressed since then. can you show me the doll that you like best and that you would like to play with? >> this one. >> this one. >> i like that one. >> this one. >> so -- is that solved by integration? >> you know, it's -- i think that it would be very beneficial that we see in the reporting down there that it is beneficial when the children especially in low income communities have access to resources, and have

more diversity in the experiences and the people they are exposed to. a lot of times we go to schools in the delta and the kids have never been outside of the delta and have very little, so immigration is important, but we see more importantly what the schools really need first is the resources and the funding and quality teachers in there. >> and when we come back, i want to come back to you on this question, and come back to you, chris, because i want to ask if as we start measuring school quality if immigration starts to measure equality. and don't go away, because we are taking a break, but wasn't to talk about how charter schools are continuing this issue of resegregation. >> there was a big apprehension of daughters, white daughters going into a predominantly black school schools. >> you had really a segregated society. and all of the sudden today, it is going to be integrated.

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ridding the public schools of racial segregation was one of the original civil rights battles and yet today in most places the schools are as segregated as they were in the 1960s. many school reform activists have been pushing charter schools as a fix to inequality in education, but research finds that the charter schools are likely to be racially imbalanced. a study in north carolina found that 30% of students at the end p public schools, and 60% of chart ter schools at the end racially unbalanced schools, so when we come back to the question, and thinking of the charters and the valentine you of the charters and the value of the quality of education, shouldn't integration be one of

the measures of how good a school is? >> well, the big argument in mississippi with charters is that they would become segregation academy ps essentially, and there is a fight there to see which districts get the charters, the high performing districts or the low performing districts or all districts? i think that integration is important, but the things that mississippi are choosing to focus on are the things that will improve the academic achievement of students, so we are seeing a push for suddenly pre-k, and the charter schools are being introduced because the legislators down there believe it will improve educational opportunities for kids, and so while integration is important and crucial in public schools, i think that right now, we will see that they are focusing more on exactly what can they target to immediately improve. what is the quickest point of entry to public education? >> well, it is something that makes me nervous to see strange

bedfell bedfellows, and you see people in louisiana who are encouraging charter systems, and vouchers and i am thinking, that you have not been on the side of educating the kids for decades and now i'm supposed to believe that you are? >> part of the republican agenda, and the a.l.e.c. has been to shift as much public money to charter schools to private school vouchers, and you are seeing the big battles in places with red governors and red legislatures and i don't know, we have so much brain power at this table talking about it, and maybe the best contribution ki make is two great documentaries that have come to my attention and one is about hoxley, arkansas, which is a small town that voluntarily segregated for financial and moral reasons, and then on espn, they have a story about a team

that deseg regated and the tension that happened there. >> and my mom who went to brigham young university said that the mormon church changed their mind about folks when the football team started to lose. >> she speaks the truth. >> and chris, i wanted to come back to you, because, you know, obviously part of what you all do is that you try to address children where they are, and you nknow know, despite the injustices, and how do you on the one hand think about the broader system, and yet meet young people at the moment where they are without having to wait for a new system? >> right. and that's the tension. that's the tension that you live in an imperfect reality, and so you have to make do with that reality. that is part of where the sunflower freedom project came from. it was taking where the kids are right now and realizing that they deserve so much better, and so much more in terms of the educational opportunity, aioppo thinking about the things that we could do as eng kay tor the

educators to give them the opportunities and that is how the freedom project developed and changed over the years, but it is interesting, because we have never had a white student. there are white families that we try very hard to recruit, especially early on, but, but in a place like mississippi, it is very few shades of gray, right. so once a program or a school or a neighborhood is considered black or white, it tends to stay that way. one thing you talked about the charter schools which is interesting, and i actually don't think that integration has been at the top of the educational agenda for quite some time and probably since the 1970s, and so this is the process of resegregation that has been happening for quite some time, because we on both sides of the issues and some activists grew frustrated and resigned to the white resistance and figured, well, as dr. cobb talked about, maybe we need to just focus on the equalization, and accept segregation as the

reality and focus on that. i know that -- >> try to do that and work within it. you said something they want to bring martha in for a second. you said if a neighborhood and or a school is labeled as such, and neighborhoods are a big part of the story, because they want their kids to go to school nearby, and the segregation in the country, and most brew utal in the south keeps kids from being integrated. >> yes, and a great example of that is nickels school in biloxi, mississippi, where we are providing support for it, but the community is up in arms over the closing of the school that was a high performing school, and prize winning school, and completely rebuilt after hurricane katrina and shiny new facility, and so we will still see it -- >> it was closed? >> it was closed on the

protexturally for the reason of the declining populations after katrina meant they had to consolidate schools, and where did nthey consolidate but to th white community school. and at the center for justice, we trying to operate on three levels and just as chris in the delta is ensuring that the people have help, we are providing those individual services. children need to stay in co-- sn school and have resources for them. that is critical. then at the district level, these strategies that are undertaken by local districts that are completely unaccountable for communities of color, and then finally at the state policy level as jackie mentioned, the strong effort to correct the imbalance and part of the two mississippis is that the poorest district has 1/480th of the local resources to fund

local schools. >> and to try to keep them all in mind at the same time, the kid kids and the families and the local and the community and the state policy levels. i would like to thank the panel here at the table. up next, i want to do some one-on-one, because i want to introduce you to rosa parks. i know you think you know her, but you don't. stay with us. crest pro-health for a week. my dentist said it was gonna help transform my mouth. [ male announcer ] go pro. for a clean that's up to four times better, try these crest pro-health products together. [ sara ] i've been using crest pro-health. so far...it feels different. [ male announcer ] crest pro-health protects not just some, but all these areas dentists check most. my mouth feels healthier. it feels cleaner. i think my dentist is gonna see the difference. [ male announcer ] go pro with crest pro-health. i don't think i'll ever go back to another product. see.

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my insurance company told me not to talk to people like you. you always do what they tell you? no... try it, and see what your good driving can save you. you don't even have to switch. unless you're scared. i'm not scared, it's... you know we can still see you. no, you can't. pretty sure we can... try snapshot today -- no pressure. monday, would have been the 100th birthday of rosa parks. i'm not trying to embarrass anyone, but be honest when you hear the name rosa parks, what do you think of? the woman who sat in the front of the bus, right? the story of to seamstress in 1955 refused to give up her seat to a white man on a crowded montgomery bus. it is a staple to civil rights lore in textbooks, but can you tell me one other thing about

rosa parks? yes, see, for everyone who is ready on twitter, don't be offended, but all i am saying is that all you know about rosa parks is that one moment, you are missing the big vast thing that is in fact rosa parks, but yes, she refused to give up the seat, but what else do we know about her? how many of us know she was thrown off of the bus a decade earlier by the same driver, that she had been working with the naacp for more than a decade to document brutality against african-americansb, or one of my favorite factoids, her personal hero was malcolm x. there is so much more that goes beyond rosa parks and it is told in a new book "the rebellious life" and written by the professor of jean tomlinson, and i am happy that this book is out. tell us the folks out in

nerdland what this is about. >> it is not one day or one act, but it is about a lifetime of courageous acts that she does over and over before the boycott and then 30 years before the boycott in detroit the make courageous stands in her life so that the idea of one day is a myth. >> i don't want people to miss this, but in detroit. so shortly, she leaves the south, and ends up spending most of her adult time in detroit. >> right. more than half of her political life is spent in detroit in what she called the promised land that wasn't. she very much finds race nichl detroit when they moved there, and they moved there eight months after the boycott ends, and they have lost their jobs, and they are still getting death threats so many ways, they are exiled and forced to leave montgomery for detroit where her brother live, and she does not find too much difference between race relations in montgomery and detroit. so just as she did in

montgomery, she is setting out to challenge racial inequality in schools, jobs, and housing in detroit. >> well, it is interesting, jeanne, because as i read the introduction, we would think that this should be the third or the fourth or the tenth volume on parks, but in fact, she has been reduced to kind of a stories' children and this tired seamstress who just didn't get up, but she had a long trajectory before that moment on the bus and not just after it. >> absolutely. absolutely. she joins the ncaa in 1943 when she realizes that women can be part of the local branch. she has right, more than a decade, and sometimes when we say the naacp today, that seems mild, but in 1943 and particularly as she and edie nixon start to work to transform the montgomery branch into a more activist branch, this is dangerous work as they try to document white brutality and protest lynching and protest

segregation. and so much that happened up to that point. >> and she had relationships with people like stoakley carmichael and thought of malcolm x and his defense of self-defense as a central strategy for her, and that mrs. parks remained armed even throughout the montgomery bus boycott, because of the violence she faced. so we think of her and king as the non-violent leaders, but she was a leader concerned with self-defense. >> yes, a lifelong leader in self-defense and she gets it from her grandfather when the klan rages through alabama and shoots her husband. and the nine scotsboro boys who are rapidly convicted in 1951 of rape charges, they keep a gun this the house many in many ways, because the organizing is

so dangerous. so, yes, she is a lifelong believer in self-defense, but believes in the power of organized nonviolence leading up to the montgomery bus boycott. >> i have been seeing you speak on this in academic circles for a long time and here it is african-american history month and two days before what would have been her 100th birthday and thank you for bringing rosa parks back to us in this country. >> thank you. and up next, what is going on with my governor? why louisiana's bobby jindal has me saying it again, #fbj. help . when a twinge of back pain surprises him. morning starts in high spirits, but there's a growing pain in his lower back. as lines grow longer, his pain continues to linger. but after a long day of helping others, he gets some helpful advice. just two aleve have the strength to keep back pain away all day. today, jason chose aleve.

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and the last letters standing for bobby jindal, and he comes from my home state, and if i could forget to wish him away, because lately if you live in l.ouisiana or just watching the super bowl coverage and therefore must keep looking at the television about louisiana, there is bobby jindal who has made himself in the possibility of his presidential run in 2016 impossible to forget. in a recent "washington post" editorial, governor jindal appealed to president obama for a meeting to advice him on how to fix medicaid and pleading for quote, plexability for the states to make their own decision about the program. well, thanks to recently announced cuts in louisiana's medicaid programs, we know what bobby jindal's idea of flexibility lacks like. if you are a poor person living in louisiana and living with hiv, you will lose your case management visits and if you are a low income mother, you can say

good-bye to the home care visits by a nurse for your newborn, and if you are need of services, forget them, and if you are a nursing home resident and you need speech therapy, you can say good-bye to that. thank you, bobby jindal. this in a state with the highest poverty and the lowest rates of insurance, and for his hopes of being president one day, you can forget it bobby jindal, fbj. and joining me is patrick milsap and majev malhotra, an active leader in american indian affairs. and i want to start with you, majev, because you wrote a piece in the "washington post" about

my governor saying that indian americans are dismayed to see that he has done knotting for the community while soliciting us for campaign funds, and he has moreched at an earlily age that people of his conservative state would elect. >> well, the indian americans are overwhelmingly supporting president obama, and in fact, 84% of the indian american vote went for president obama, and so that tells you the ideology and the values and the thinking of the american indian is opposite of jindal. so jindal representing the extreme right wing has done two shifts. the first shift he did was when he entered politics, and converted himself to an extreme version of christianity, and wrote to president bush that this conversion is going to drive his and guide his political career and got some endorsements and became as white as he could except for the skin color. his manners -- >> and you used passing to describe him? >> yes, because the american

experience being one of immigrants and new people coming to the country is an experience of groups forming identity as americans and different kinds of americans, and the indian american group is a new one and still in the early stages of defining who we are, and so most of us are quite dismayed at the sellout and the hypocrisy of jindal, because on the one hand, he has distanced himself from the indian american community except for getting funds from them, and on the other hand, very recently, the republican party has an identity crisis, and realizes the need to be less white, and suddenly, he flips around and says, i'm the guy. >> i want to come to you on this because this is one of the lessons of the republican party for 2012 and we have a deep bench of republicans of color, and nikki haley and susana martinez is on it and my g

governor bobby jindal is on it, but when you hear of the authenticity claim that is problematic, what is the republicans hoping that the bench of republican color will move them into the next arena. >> okay. let's do a positive and having an elected official in louisiana that is not under federal investigation is a huge thing. >> we are big on that. >> and in bobby jindal's favor, he is not being investigated right now. >> well, sometimes it takes a couple of years. >> well, you never know. and secondly, and the republican party actually does have more minorities in governorship than the democratic party does. >> yes. >> and the concern about what bobby jindal is doing is to attaching the budget concerns and when you list the things that he is talking about, there is tough, and when you talk about people with hiv not getting treated, that is a hard thing, but that is a financial issue, and to attach that as to that makes him more white or less white, i don't know if that

is a fair assessment. >> that is fair. >> and here is wone thing, all right -- let me jump in. louisiana has the second highest black population in the country as you know. and talking about a state that are poor, and going to disproportionately bear the brunt of the cuts were not african-americans, this would be entirely different conversation. mississippi is 32%, and louisiana is 33%. >> i watched bobby jindal all of the way from back when he converted from a hindu. i consider myself sadly a jindalologist, and as he tries to become a national figure, we are in an era of authenticity of politics, and he will have problems, because he not only changed the religion, but the narnlgs and he was in the bush administration on health and changed some of the policy positions, and he has even changed campaign tactics and the reason he did not get elected

governor and kathleen blanco did is because he was the only governor at the time who would not attack somebody, so he has evolved. i am not claiming every one of these things, but the third child, he was mysteriously there and delivered the third child, and i don't know that any or any of the all things lack authenticity, but when you add them together and watch him perform, and he is like the republican al gore of in terms of being -- >> or john kerry or something. i want to bring in state senator karen carter peterson of louisiana and chairwoman of the louisiana democratic party, and i want to bring her in, karen, on this question, patrick said, lo look, and this is fair, because we do have difficulties around this with black representatives as well, but like you don't want to attach some racial or ethnic authenticity on the one hand with policy positions on the other, but the fact is that he's making choices that are over and over again just borne by poor

people and they are overwhelmingly people of color in our state. >> look, melissa, just do a fact check, and over the last five years governor jindal has cut medicaid every year. louisiana has won one of the lowest eligibility levels in the country. 12% of the poverty level for those people over age 19 not disabled and not pregnant with respect to eligibility for medicaid. that is is ridiculous. his political ideology and ambition has been paramount in any decision he has made. it has been to the detriment of the citizens. >> and look, part of this for me, and again, it is not to say, oh, is he authentic or not, but rather, there is a political point to the authenticity, right? that the issue is that four republicans and when you put bobby jindal forward, it is with the sense of a more compassionate conservativism and

yet, we see no passion in how he is crafting health care. >> he is a rick perry in his skin, and he is uncomfortable. he has rejected indian american, and rejected the ethnicity with the groups except when it comes to fund-raising and now that the republican party needs somebody who will represent diversity or hoist as a diverse person, he wants to stand up. >> well, in some ways rick perry got rick perried because he was compassionate in two spaces, he had a position on guard sill that was a common sense reasonable position over which he was attacked and then initially commonsense position on immigration and the issue of the dreamers basically in the public schools in texas, both of which got him torpedoed. >> well, can we -- we have two topics, and two things that i would like to divide up, and number one is talking about

poverty, and then talking about neighborhoods of color as if those are synonymous. i think that that -- >> well, you hang out in louisiana and you know that the layover. >> i understand that, but to assume, and statistically, it is the case, but to assume that people of color is going to be in this other, i can't stomach that, so let's talk about how you deal with poverty and i live in one of the poorest congressional districts in america, and the other thing that we have to separate out is bobby p jindal the potential presidential contender and bobby jindal the governor and you keep saying that these are not compassionate moves, but louisiana has a balanced budget requirement, and if you cut from one to put somewhere else, and so what other programs -- >> well, how about raising revenues. so i hear you and one possibility and i will come back to karen about this, and one possibility is raising revenue and we know that louisiana has one of the most regressive tax plans and the governor is

encouraging a more regressive one, because it lays on top of the sales tax. sales tax means that the poor people go to buy the consumer goods and the groceries and end up playing a higher proportion of the budget while at the same time we are cutting the taxes for the wealthy and karen, you are there in the state legislature, so how much of this is about the ecomonic of it and how much of it is about the ideological positions for him to go from jindal the governor to jindal the president. >> well, there is no doubt this is for 2016. a specific example is that two years ago the governor was unwilling to raise the tobacco tax in louisiana. the money while all of the republicans across the state whether it was charlie crist or haley barbour in mississippi were willing to raise the tobacco tax because of tough time, and he said not only would he veto it, but they had to pass

a constitutional amendment to raise the tax on it. we have the low nest the country. and now as he wants to eliminate taxes and corporate taxes, but on sales taxes, he is putting on the table right now, i'm interested in increasing the tobacco tax, and this is right there the difference of the ideology and the flip-flopping -- go ahead. >> well, interesting and we will take a quick break and continue to talk about louisiana and broaden it out, because part of what is going on here is the fact that the south is a one-har pi town. -- one-party town. ♪ wow. [ buzz ] delicious, right? yeah. it's the honey, it makes it taste so... ♪ well, would you look at the time... what's the rush? bee happy. bee healthy. with clusters of flakes and o's. oh, ho ho... it's the honey sweetness.

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gop's solid dominance in the south, governor jindal's win 70% is more the rule than the exception in the southern politics, thanks to the south's single-party superiority, they are free to pass laws that are burdensome to the most marginalized people. like they say in atlanta, who going to check me, boo? and you make a point of the poor and often rural louisianians and 70% or more of them give their votes to the governor and then he makes policy which is oftentimes not in the economic self-interest. >> not only that, and this is -- georgia is probably ten years from being a purple state, and here is why. we have huge, and we have a large african-american population, and this african-american population is getting richer. they are -- you talk about the black communities and some of the black communities are some of the nicest suburbs in atlanta, but because the republican party is completely

writing off any real outrage and not lip service, but i'm talking about going door-to-door like obama did and real politicking, and if we don't reach out to all georgians and all southerners, the guarantee southern base for the republican party is no longer as guaranteed as it was amongst white men or whatever, because it is slipping. obama got 45% in georgia. >> this is your business to create a two-party platform in the south. >> and we are hopeful it is more like two to four years in georgia, but we can debate the math as the democrats and the republicans do. the south will come back demographically and politically and one thing is that the challenges is that the republicans control so much, they are overreaching left and right. i survived 1984 when the democrats were wiped out around the country, and two or three cycles we had democratic

govern governors of south carolina, georgia, alabama and mississippi and tennessee, and so that the pendulum will swing back and hopefully through great ideas and great candidates that are democrats, but also a big part of the equation is overreach, because the republicans think that they have now gotten these legislative bodies and governorships for decades. >> so, karen, let me ask you on that, because obviously as head of the louisiana democratic party, how do youporters that their economic interests lie with the democratic party? >> well, governor jindal is helping us. there are republicans in the legislature and all across the state that have been silenced and some have been silenced and others like john kennedy, the treasurer and even david viter in the u.s. senate that challenged jindal's flawed policies. there is a window of opportunity not just here in louisiana, but across the south. i totally disagree that it will

take ten years for georgia to be purple and let me throw that in, because i took on a role as the new vice president of the organization of democratic party chairs and i look forward to being in in georgia and north carolina and going right after folks. and it's good that there's upward mobility occurring in the african-american community. but they are not going to be listening to the rhetoric. they're going to in fact look at the republicans' records and figure out that's not the best place for them for opportunity, for economic security and otherwise. so i think it's a farce. we're doing great things here in louisiana, the democratic party, rebuilding. mary landrieu in 2014. >> i always love your optimism. we both manage to be wearing purple today. karen carter peterson in the place that i am so sad i'm not at this moment, the home of the current super bowl new orleans. up next, we're not going to talk so much as purple but pink and

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our foot soldier this week is a bit unorthodox. instead of honoring a person we are honoring a building. for month we've been bringing you the story of one lonely building in mississippi, the jackson women's health organization is the state's only remaining abortion clinic. it's been targeted by the conservative governor and lawmakers. they're using a strategy called targeted represent lags of abortion providers that out clinics that provide abortions and burden them with requirements more restrictive than other medical procedures. for months this little gray building has been trapped. it is trapped between new laws that require its doctors to

secure a hospital-admitting privileges and the seven local hospitals that refuse to grant the doctors the privileges. because the clinic is trapped, so are the women of mississippi. mississippi is one of the poorest states in the nation. it has the highest teen birth rate. and yet the women of mississippi have the same constitutional right as all american women. one of those is to seek an abortion. but lawmakers have figured out the easiest way to deny women the ability to exercise that right is to attack this building. here it stand, jackson's women's health, the sole provider for the state's most vulnerable women, those who are poor, those who are teens, those who lack resources to raise a child, those who already have children and have no other way to support another. those who have been victimized by domestic violence or rape. those who do not have a private obgyn who can quietly give them an abortion and submit it to insurance as dd and c. these are the women for whom the jackson's women's health center has been a beacon.

this week this little foot soldiering building did something terrific. it turned pink. bright pink. defiance in your face, i am not afraid to stay pink. even as it is trapped on the biassed regulations of anti-choice legislatures, the jackson women's health organization boldly declared its intention to continue to serve the women of mississippi. fighting back against the gray clouds of trap with a bright coat of pink paint, for that the jackson women's health organization is our foot soldier of the week. and that's our show for today. thanks to my panel and thank you to you at home for watching. are you ready for some football tomorrow? it is super bowl sunday and we're going to take a look at all the perils and passion around one of my favorite sports. coming up, "weekends with alex witt." [ fishing rod casting line, marching band playing ]

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